OT: Pikiell's doing good work

[Paesano]

I am not sold on Pikell yet and Donyell isn't going to sign up to be his assistant.

 

[Jaker]

This thread is sad.

 

[Huskybass]

We are talking you, superjohn, Huskybass, JMick and who else..?

Yes, I have noticed. Pikiell is bright, resourceful and now has a fair amount of experience. I am very happy for his success. He overlapped with me at UConn. Once he hurt his shoulder, it was a natural for him to take the coaching path.

And you forgot Tenspro, UCDaveD, Thirdbass, SouthbayHusky and several others.

Pay attention! ☺

 

[Scrutineer]

What Pikiell has done so far at Rutgers deserves a lot of praise but the validity of his success won't be confirmed until several years from now. He's such a nice guy I'm sure most of us are rooting for him, and some are hoping he'll end up at UConn, but there's no guarantees how he'll do long term.

How many here remember Mitch Buonaguro? Assistant at BC for two years and then eight years as an assistant to Rollie Massimino at Villanova. He was highly thought of and became head coach at Fairfield in 1985, had a great first year (24-7) and many UConn fans wished he'd been hired that year to replace Dom Perno. Buonaguro never had a winning season again and was fired after five straight losing seasons.

Kevin Ollie has a lot to prove this year and I for one am hoping he proves all of us wrong and turns the team around. There's really no sure things when you change coaches and there's no guarantee there'll be another Calhoun walking through that door.

 

[Matrim55]

How many here remember Mitch Buonaguro? Assistant at BC for two years and then eight years as an assistant to Rollie Massimino at Villanova. He was highly thought of and became head coach at Fairfield in 1985, had a great first year (24-7) and many UConn fans wished he'd been hired that year to replace Dom Perno. Buonaguro never had a winning season again and was fired after five straight losing seasons.

Not a good comparison. Pikiell's in his 13th year as a D1 head coach, is approaching 250 career wins, and if he gets Rutgers to 20 wins this year he'll have gone for 20+ in 6 of his last 7 seasons and 7 of his last 9 despite heading one program (Stony Brook) that literally didn't exist and another (Rutgers) that has one 20+ win season in the last 35 years.

There are questions as to whether he can recruit and retain enough top-level talent to get a team to the top of a P5 conference, and so far he's only proved to be an OK, not great, tournament coach.

There's no question, however, as to whether he can be a consistent, winning head coach at a sub-P5 level.

Buonaguro is a bad comp for Pikiell. He's probably a better comp for Ollie, tbh.

 

[Robertelamin]

Guys, this win doesn't count for Pikiell. Many of his players were developed and recruited under the previous head coach.

 

[Scrutineer]

Not a good comparison. Pikiell's in his 13th year as a D1 head coach, is approaching 250 career wins, and if he gets Rutgers to 20 wins this year he'll have gone for 20+ in 6 of his last 7 seasons and 7 of his last 9 despite heading one program (Stony Brook) that literally didn't exist and another (Rutgers) that has one 20+ win season in the last 35 years.

There are questions as to whether he can recruit and retain enough top-level talent to get a team to the top of a P5 conference, and so far he's only proved to be an OK, not great, tournament coach.

There's no question, however, as to whether he can be a consistent, winning head coach at a sub-P5 level.

Buonaguro is a bad comp for Pikiell. He's probably a better comp for Ollie, tbh.

Oh, oh, I didn't mean to compare Pikiell to Buonaguro as to quality, only that he's done a good job with Rutgers last year and this year but shouldn't assume that means he'll get better every year and become Rutgers' Jim Calhoun.
Having said that, he's done pretty well with a roster of no names who seem to be playing aggressively and playing good defense. Lots of spirit shown today and I didn't see a lot of
uncontested shots by Seton Hall.

 

[Matrim55]

Oh, oh, I didn't mean to compare Pikiell to Buonaguro as to quality, only that he's done a good job with Rutgers last year and this year but shouldn't assume that means he'll get better every year and become Rutgers' Jim Calhoun.

Yeah, definitely not saying he'll be that. But maybe he could be Tony Bennett-ish?

Obviously it's too early to jump to that kind of expectation, but Pikiell's done nothing but impress over the past decade.

 

[AntG168]

Guys, this win doesn't count for Pikiell. Many of his players were developed and recruited under the previous head coach.

This is GOLD. Bravo

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Jesus could coach Rutgers and I’d hate them and want them to lose every game.

 

[4morerings]

Looking forward to seeing how they handle their January schedule. If they run the table at home they'll head into the last month of the season at 16-8 and maybe on the NCAA tourney bubble. Run the table at home + steal road wins at Penn State and/or Illinois (very possible), and they'd probably be considered a tourney team.

Pikiell's already proved he can build a small program from scratch. If he can resurrect a P5 program from the dead, the dude will become a hot commodity.

And it needs to be said: Rutgers aren't doing this because they have one lights-out shooter or something. They're just really, really well coached – defend well, rebound well, don't turn it over much, hit their rotations, etc.

It's nice to see.


Perhaps. We'll definitely know more at the end of January. The low bar is beating Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska at home, at the very least. Add in Ohio State and one road win, and this thing'll have legs.

Like you said before, the Big 10 is so down this year that it's not much of a stretch to imagine this coming to fruition.

 

[AdamaNation]

Not a good comparison. Pikiell's in his 13th year as a D1 head coach, is approaching 250 career wins, and if he gets Rutgers to 20 wins this year he'll have gone for 20+ in 6 of his last 7 seasons and 7 of his last 9 despite heading one program (Stony Brook) that literally didn't exist and another (Rutgers) that has one 20+ win season in the last 35 years.

There are questions as to whether he can recruit and retain enough top-level talent to get a team to the top of a P5 conference, and so far he's only proved to be an OK, not great, tournament coach.

There's no question, however, as to whether he can be a consistent, winning head coach at a sub-P5 level.

Buonaguro is a bad comp for Pikiell. He's probably a better comp for Ollie, tbh.

Doesn’t matter. If ko is “ struggling “ with getting top talent to the aac as well as Larry brown did and tubby and ( both national champs) mick and even mr Williams, Stevie p ain’t got a chance. Bottom line ( and it has taken 3 years for me to get here), we could recruit better at the bottom of the acc or nbe, than in the middle or top of the aac. Let’s hope WSU kills it this year and gets us to add another good program ( Dayton. Vcu?) maybe we can be another nbe type conference. Our issue is the bottom of this league is killing us. ironically , if we and say smu struggled for a few years and any other cellar dwellers emerged, this conference would be legit.

 

[Matrim55]

Doesn’t matter. If ko is “ struggling “ with getting top talent to the aac as well as Larry brown did and tubby and ( both national champs) and mick and even mr Williams, Stevie p ain’t got a chance. Bottom line ( and it has taken 3 years for me to get here), we could recruit better at the bottom of the acc or nbe, than in the middle of top of the aac.

This makes zero sense.

2015: A top-25, 5-star combo guard (Jalen), a top 100, 4-star big man (Enoch) and 2 of the top 3 postgrad transfers
2016: A top 10 overall class including a McDonald's all-american PG, a high-4-star SF and a high-4-star PF, and borderline 4-star PF & SG
2017: 4-star SF, 4-star C, 3-star PF, one high-rated JuCo transfer and one low-rated JuCo transfer
2018: 4-star top 60 SF, 4-star top-100 PG, 4-star top-150 C, high 3-star SF

Is it as good as our glory days? No. Is it good enough to get us into the top 2 of the AAC and top 20 overall? Hell yes.

Recruiting can bet better, but it damn sure isn't the problem.

EDIT: And let me just add that we've had multiple 4-stars commit and then go elsewhere during this time (MAL, Prince Ali, Willie Jackson).

 

[willie99]

Don’t you mean 4 years ago? If your measurement is consistent, that was the 2014 season, and we’re in the 2018 season. And, I don’t think anyone here hates KO. We want to be competitive and somewhat relevant. If we fail to make the tournament again this year, it makes literally 1 appearance in four years, and that’s unacceptable, and why attendance is reaching a record low. It’s just not sustainable. Obviously, we’re all praying KO gets the program back to some relevancy, but there are few to no signs of improvement. This is just a fact. But I wish people would please stop saying that because the fanbase is dissatisfied with Kevin Ollie’s performance that equates to hatred for him. Our allegiance is to a team, not a coach, and when your beloved team fails year after year after year after year, you can’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results. He deserves the end of the season, and everybody is rooting for us to win, but just because were rooting and wanting to win doesn’t mean people aren’t fans when expressing realistic expectations that we will probably not win. That said, there’s always a chance of a little Husky magic late in season and it at least gives us a sliver of hope, which even the most dissatisfied of us will cling to.

When you behave in a manner some UConn fans have behaved at our games and that behavior is actually condoned or "understood" by members of this board, it's absolutely about hatred for Ollie.

And it's not a fact this program has shown little or no improvement this year, that's called begging the question, so much so I think that statement is categorically incorrect

In making your conclusions, you've already written off the current season, which is a far cry from being over.

8 new rotation players, two returning rotation players, another key injury AND one of our stars still recovering from a torn ACL. We're still in a much better place than we were in May 2017, and this team needs time to jell. Any team under any coach in the world would need time to jell under such circumstances. Those are the facts.

 

[willie99]

I love the job Pikiell is doing at RU and what he did for SB. I wish him continued success, and if there comes a day we're looking for a new coach sometime down the road, he'd be a great candidate.

As for former UConn players having potential to be great coaches, Caron Butler may have the necessary intangibles, hope he gets into coaching (if he's looking for something to do that is)

 

[B1GEast]

What Pikiell has done at Rutgers is akin to Moses parting the Red Sea or Jesus walking on water.

I'm a believer, and if KO moves on we need to pry him loose from them.

Pikiell will have bigger schools offering top dollar for his services.

Rutgers will miss him when he's gone. I wonder how far he takes them, he's special.

 

[djct1999]

Coaching matters.

 

[mauconnfan]

Coaching matters.

Yes it does and if you watched the game Kevin Willard was awful and handed them the game. Luck plays a part too and Sanders, a 39% overall shooter made everything he looked at the last minutes of the game. The Hall was up 63-54 and had the game locked until Sanders went off, but mostly because of TO's, real fast bad shots by Seton Hall who didn't even try to set up a play to get the ball to Delagdo during the stretch that absolutely killed them. There were no set plays Sanders just took over and went crazy.

Hey Steve's a good coach, but there was a lot more into the finish of that game than you'd care to share because this is all about how bad KO is I know ...Fact is this place would be a mess if KO had that lead and lost it the way Willard did, it was an awful display of coaching, or not coaching shall I say.

But we have the only bad coach in America, the worst.

 

[Huskymagic]

Pikiell is a good coach there is no denying that, and he is doing it at places that are hard to win at. Pikiell knows how to coach, motivate, and has an identity that he wants his to play with. I'm sure that AD Dave is monitoring the situation and the next 2 games against Arizona and Auburn will tell him everything he needs to know about Ollie and the program moving forward.

PS: Corey Sanders is a good college player equal to Jalen in many respects. He was a top 60 player out of high school.

PS: With the way Rutgers is playing and already getting Montez for next year,if Pikieel gets them to middle of the pack in the Big 10, recruiting may be on the upswing as well, as New Brunswick, NJ is an easy place to recruit to with NYC literally next door.

 

[mauconnfan]

People want to get rid of KO so bad they stop looking at the facts in front of their dopey faces.

I want our ex-Husky to succeed too, great guy and seemingly a solid coach although I doubt the answer. But before we start crowning him the new messiah, can we see the season unfold? I mean RU was 11-1 last year and ended up 15-18. They're 10-3 now, not as good as last year and Hall handed them one yesterday. Yep they handled Bryant, NJIT, CCNY, Coppin, Fordham and even CCSU by 4 (he'd be crucified here for that score by all you hypocrites) but can we see how they walk through the B10 before we make this decision to call the Prez to have her tell AD David Benedict who he is ? LOL, this place is such a joke.

 

[Matrim55]

I mean RU was 11-1 last year and ended up 15-18. They're 10-3 now, not as good as last year and Hall handed them one yesterday.

Like I said, we'll know more at the end of January. But their three losses all came against ranked teams (FSU, Minnesota & Sparty), and they played two of those – FSU & Sparty – hella tough. Sparty in particular struggled a lot more with Rutgers than they did with UConn.

 

[Tuna]

I'm sure that AD Dave is monitoring the situation and the next 2 games against Arizona and Auburn will tell him everything he needs to know about Ollie and the program moving forward.

Yeah, the results of two games will tell him everything he needs to know about the future of UCONN basketball. You are a true simpleton.

 

[Matrim55]

Yeah, the results of two games will tell him everything he needs to know about the future of UCONN basketball. You are a true simpleton.

If we lose both by 30+, they'll tell him quite a bit.

 

[upstater]

This is GOLD. Bravo

Yes, but that staff has sent countless players to the NBA.

 

[upstater]

Pikiell is a good coach there is no denying that, and he is doing it at places that are hard to win at. Pikiell knows how to coach, motivate, and has an identity that he wants his to play with. I'm sure that AD Dave is monitoring the situation and the next 2 games against Arizona and Auburn will tell him everything he needs to know about Ollie and the program moving forward.

PS: Corey Sanders is a good college player equal to Jalen in many respects. He was a top 60 player out of high school.

PS: With the way Rutgers is playing and already getting Montez for next year,if Pikieel gets them to middle of the pack in the Big 10, recruiting may be on the upswing as well, as New Brunswick, NJ is an easy place to recruit to with NYC literally next door.

Literally? It's 40 miles away, over an hour by car.